How To Film A Phantom

He shot 2002's Phone Booth in a mere 12 days. But Joel Schumacher knows that some dreams take longer than others. Back in 1988, after St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys had introduced him as a promising if lightweight young American director (and before Batman Forever sealed his place in the upper reaches of the Hollywood hierarchy), Schumacher decided to see Broadway's newest hit, The Phantom of the Opera. Even before he got the chance, Andrew Lloyd Webber, its composer, called him and mentioned that he wanted to bring the play to the big screen. "Every director in Hollywood wanted to do it," Schumacher recalls. "Because this was already the biggest show in the world."

Then he saw it and got hooked. Just the storyline — a deformed composer who lives beneath the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young singer — transfixed him. In the darkness of Broadway's Majestic Theater, at the climax when the Phantom threatens to kill the girl's lover unless she stays with him, Schumacher had an epiphany. "She kisses him. And then — I don't know who came up with this but it was incredible — she kisses him again. And he can't take it because he realizes what a sacrifice she's making. That second kiss is too much for him. And I sat up in my seat and thought, 'That's a great movie moment.' Suddenly I knew how to make this film."

Sixteen years later, that vision is finally reaching completion on the set at London's Pinewood Studios, where the ingenue, Christine, and her beloved Raoul are pledging their noisy passion on a make-believe rooftop of the Paris Opera. Fake snow swirls, and an orchestra assaults the eardrums. Amid the chaos, Schumacher appears relaxed, even louche, as he watches the action through his monitor. He's having a good time. And he's just one of many directors out to revive the movie musical — a trend that began when Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge squeaked out a small profit in 2001, and gathered steam a year later when Rob Marshall's Chicago grossed over $170 million in the U.S. and bagged six Oscars. "Movie musicals went out of fashion for a long time," says Schumacher, "but finally it looks like they're coming back."

Harvey Weinstein certainly thinks so. In the past year, the Miramax boss (his studio was behind Chicago) has gobbled up the rights to such old-school classics as Damn Yankees, Guys and Dolls and Pippin. American Beauty director Sam Mendes has announced plans to shoot Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Mel Brooks is set to roll on his movie turned musical turned movie, The Producers. Chris Columbus has signed on for Rent, and there are plans for big-screen versions of Bombay Dreams, Urinetown and Hairspray.

Chicago cloaked its musical yearnings by having its song-and-dance numbers take place in a character's mind. Moulin used pop hits by Elton John and David Bowie. But Phantom will make no excuses for being a full-blown, 143-minute rock opera that's more opera than rock. If audiences respond, Lloyd Webber says he will begin filming his considerable back catalog, starting with 1993's Sunset Boulevard. And if Phantom fails? The trend could dry up and blow away.

So far, the omens haven't been good. Schumacher was set to direct Phantom in 1990, with the stage show's original stars Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, who was then married to Lloyd Webber. When they divorced, the film fell apart, and despite rumors casting various stars in the main roles — Antonio Banderas, John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Keira Knightly — Warner Bros., which held the screen rights, dithered. Meanwhile, the producers of the stage show, who were overseeing its 22-country rollout, worried about killing theater trade if the film was bad. When Lloyd Webber's Evita barely turned a profit in 1996, Phantom seemed doomed.